In most residential garages, the parking area is tight. Vehicles have to be parked at the correct position inside of the garage to leave enough area in front and back of the vehicle to enable the driver and/or passengers to enter and exit the vehicle. Various parking guides are commercially available for assisting a driver to park a vehicle inside a garage at the desired position.
An example is a laser mounted to the ceiling of the garage which casts a laser light dot onto the dashboard of a vehicle as a position reference for assisting the driver to park the vehicle at a desired position. Typically, a motion detector (e.g., detecting motion of the vehicle, or the garage door) is used to trigger operation of the laser. Alternately, the operation of the laser may be triggered by operation of the garage door opener.
Installation and maintenance of these laser guides onto the ceiling of the garage can be difficult. In addition, the sensing mechanism which actuates the laser must operate continuously (e.g., 24 hours per day, 7 days per week), even though the laser guiding function may only be used a couple of times a day for a few minutes each time. Therefore, these laser guides typically require access to the household electric (e.g., installation near an existing outlet or installation of additional electrical wiring).
The sensing mechanism can be affected by various environmental and external interferences. For example, infrared (IR) motion detection can be affected by environmental conditions (e.g., dust, spider webs, temperature), and even the height of the garage ceiling. Sensing mechanisms that trigger based on light being emitted from the light bulb of the garage door opener (e.g., to indicate operation of the garage door opener) depend on the light bulb performing properly.
Furthermore, the laser may be actuated unintentionally and may cause harm For example, pets or children may pass thru the area and actuate the laser. The laser beam may be attractive to pets or children, who may look into the laser and result in short term or even long term pain or even eye damage.